I was out of town last week and only now got around to watching this show -- and there's no thread, which I suppose is indicative of something, but for the sake of the archives, here's a brief rundown.

This show kinda sucked. A couple of fun matches (but nothing as good as ECW's Christian vs. Zack Ryder match), a whole lot of talky-talky, and three -- THREE -- alignment swerves. THREE. THREE. I AM BOGGLED.

Taz -- as he is now known -- says he's here because he felt a kinship with Joe. Joe is going to try and get the X Division Title -- one of two that the Main Even Mafia does not yet hold.

Samoa Joe vs. Homicide: Some neat stuff here. Joe puts in some good work, which at this point is no longer a given. There's a funny bit where Joe wants the Suicide Dive but has to keep going off different ropes as Homicide walks around the outside of the ring, and there's a nifty spot where Joe reverses the Gringo Cutter into the Coquina Clutch as he's falling. Joe punches out the ref for some reason but is still surprised when that gets him DQ'd.

Afterward he goes after Homicide, and Hernandez (yes!) returns for the save. Joe keeps standing around with his arms crossed, just like Taz, which is a little dopey.

Backstage, Hernandez and Homicide argue (*sigh*).

Kevin Nash vs. Amazing Red: For the Legends belt; squash. Red is fast but he's the size of one of Nash's legs. Jackknife -- tease of a second -- no, pin.

Scott Steiner & Booker T vs. MEM Security: For the Tag Team belts; Mick Foley handed his boys the shot. Mostly this is a beatdown of Sally Boy. Big Rocco finally comes in and cleans house -- somehow, the crowd actually seems into this, especially when Rocco hits the SPLASH off the top rope. Sharmell distracts the ref, Booker hits the most perfunctory Bookend ever, and Scott hits the Steiner Flatliner for the pin.

Knockouts Battle Royal: This is for $50,000 and a spot in the Main Event Mafia. A returning Traci Brooks is the in-ring ref. Match comes down to Tara and Awesome Kong but it remains -- unlike every other Battle Royal in TNA history -- elimination, rather than turning into a one-on-one. Tara and Kong fight on the ropes and Traci helps them both over -- and wins!

Okay, I'm not annoyed that the ref won so much as I am annoyed that they changed the long-standing rules for the sake of a swerve. NOT for the sake of the result, which they could have gotten in any one of a dozen other ways, but for the momentary "shock" of the swerve. Screw that.

Beer Money, AJ Styles, Daniels & Eric Young vs. British Invasion, Abdul Bashir and Kiyoshi: Rob Terry makes his in-ring debut -- he doesn't do much other than let Daniels bounce off of him but Good Lord he's a beast. This has a few nice spots in it (I liked Kiyoshi's reverse "jawbreaker" to the back of Daniels' skull) but it ends with Eric Young SWERVING us all -- we thought he was back on the good guys' team, but no! He PILEDRIVES Styles and the "Foreign Contingent" gets the pin.

Tenay pushes the piledriver as unethical, just like he did in "When Worlds Collide," saying there's an unwritten rule against using it -- it'd be cool if Eric continues using it as a finisher.

Kurt Angle vs. Mick Foley: This is a -- wait for it! -- office keys ON A POLE match, winner gets control of the office. BORING match -- I'm super-done with Foley as an active wrestler, now. He makes Angle pass out with the Mandible Claw, but before he can retrieve the keys, the MEM run out and beat him down. No contest.

So do the keys just stay there until next week? But seriously, why toss up a gimmick match where the gimmick doesn't even really come into play? Especially when it's the much-mocked "On a Pole" match? I swear, Russo is just messing with us at this point.

The MEM beat down Foley -- Angle brings out BOBBY LASHLEY to finish the job! The show's almost over, but we have time for ONE MORE SWERVE, and Bobby takes out the entire MEM instead! Wow!

That was the first Impact I've caught in a while, and really there was nothing much worth talking about. The only thing that even kind of caught my attention was Tara and her tarantula gimmick. If you watch her hands while she's doing her promo, she was shaking like a leaf the whole time. That's just great gimmick assignment: give the spider gimmick to a girl who's afraid to hold one in her hands. Credit where it's due, though - she did that whole promo like a trooper.

The only reason I didn't say anything about this show is because I don't do recaps so I was waiting for somebody else.

But yeah, not much to see here. I like Hernandez vs. Joe but I think TNA's Crash TV style hurts a great deal here. Hernandez and Joe should have had a stare down in the ring for a minute or so instead of here's Joe! Here's Hernandez! Okay, now to the back!

It was pretty dumb to change their battle royal rules. Don't know what to think about Traci. Rumor is she is getting a push because she is going to be in Playboy. If a push means doing nothing with the MEM then that's fine. But if she's going to be thrown into the Women's title picture with Kong/Tara/Angel/Sarita then that's no good.

Don't know what to think of the swerves either. On the one hand, it was a lot for one show. On the other hand they would've done all of these swerves before the PPV anyway. Better to get it out of the way then have one every week. At least now they've got everybody they want on the side they want and we can move forward. Maybe they could've done without the EY swerve since he was already a heel but I think they were just trying to start over since he lost the Jarrett angle. TNA doesn't book well under normal circumstances so I'm not surprised they can't book when one of their key players is suddenly taken away.

It was also mentioned that Matt Morgan and AJ Styles will wrestle a best of 3 series to determine who faces Sting and Angle for the title at the PPV. I'm interested in what Styles can do with Morgan. Should be better than Morgan/Daniels, but for some reason I have a feeling this isn't going to end well.

Wouldn't this Joe situation work much better with a little pipsqueak shit stirring manager along the lines of Jimmy Hart 25 years ago, Jim Cornette 20 years ago or Fonzie around 15 years ago instead of Taz? Borash would make the most sense for that role, of stirring up trouble, and when the face wants to jump on him, Joe destroys him. Taz seems like a redundancy, and he hasn't been a feared wrestler in 10 years anyway.

So, Taz is clear to be Taz and doesn't have to be Tazz anymore? I thought he couldn't be Taz in the WWF because ECW had the rights (or was it a thing about the cartoon character? Kind of like the thing with Marvel vs Hogan) If it was because ECW (now WWE) have the rights, he still wouldn't be in the clear, right?

I guess something happened in the meantime that I missed.

-- 2006 Time magazine Person of the Year ---- July 2009 Ordained Reverend --

I totally loved the wonderful job Kevin Nash did in putting over Amazing Red - quite the stellar five-star match. It totally didn't look like he wanted to be *anywhere* but in the ring. I look forward to future title matches involving Nash.

Perhaps I have a higher tolerance for pain, but I didn't find it *that* awful (thought AJ Styles is approaching Sting levels when it comes to trusting the wrong person).

I never noticed Tara's reaction while in interviews - I know I flinch just watching the spider on television, I can only imagine how she feels.

I'm not sure if I'm sold on the Taz/Joe alliance yet, for the reasons stated earlier in the thread, but I'll give it time - though I wouldn't object to having him sit at the announce table.

Originally posted by Super Shane SpearHasn't Victoria been doing the spider gimmick for about 25 years now? That has to have been some sort of "acting."

Well, she's used a lot of spider-themed costumes and such, but as far as I know she's never had to hold a live tarantula in her hands before this. And trust me, those shaky hands sure looked authentic. Having thought about it a bit, though, it could have been more nervousness than fear, in the sense that maybe she wasn't thinking "Oh no, spiders are scary," but instead something like "Oh no, I have to cut this promo while working with a live animal prop. I hope I don't drop it or it runs away or I flub my lines because I'm worrying about a damn spider."

Originally posted by ZeruelSo, Taz is clear to be Taz and doesn't have to be Tazz anymore? I thought he couldn't be Taz in the WWF because ECW had the rights (or was it a thing about the cartoon character? Kind of like the thing with Marvel vs Hogan) If it was because ECW (now WWE) have the rights, he still wouldn't be in the clear, right?

I guess something happened in the meantime that I missed.

The extra z was simply so they could trademark the name as they like to have ownership of everything. There was nothing stopping him being Taz in the WWE just like there was nothing stopping Rhyno being Rhino.

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Originally posted by QuezzyIt was pretty dumb to change their battle royal rules. Don't know what to think about Traci. Rumor is she is getting a push because she is going to be in Playboy. If a push means doing nothing with the MEM then that's fine. But if she's going to be thrown into the Women's title picture with Kong/Tara/Angel/Sarita then that's no good.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to express my own fear here: Traci's absolutely going to win the title. I think TNA really wants the MEM to hold every belt. I can't imagine any reason why the MEM needs another woman in the ranks other than to hold the Knockout Title.

Arguably, it screws over the rest of the KO division, but I think the MEM angle trumps everything else right now. (Again arguably: maybe it helps them by drawing them into the show's main angle...?)

It just occurred to me -- the meaningless Jenna/Sharmell match remained meaningless last Thursday as there was no mention of it and Jenna and Sharmell got along fine. Maybe the match existed purely as a "tryout" to see if either one of them could hold the Knockout title. (Why that would have to take place on PPV rather than a dark match remains beyond me.) Results being what they were we now get Traci, who is definitely a step up from either of the other two -- for one thing, she's always game for taking some pretty nutty bumps, which will come in handy when she takes on Kong or Tara.

Weird thing is -- Tara would fit in with the MEM wonderfully, fitting their criteria to a "T". Maybe that swerve would have been just too shocking.

Or, I guess, they just needed something for Traci to do, since she's going to be in Playboy. One of my least favorite things the WWE did was, whenever one of the Divas did a Playboy shoot, they would run this whole angle about how wonderful it is, and how every single American girl's most cherished desire is to be in Playboy, and how this other Diva is going to start a feud because she's all jealous, and I always found that whole aspect kinda repulsive. WWE has dropped all that in the PG era and it looks like TNA is eager to jump on the wagon; bleah.